Overdue Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures, I am embarrassed to say they are from Mother's Day and it's just been a long string of excuses (sick/worn out/preoccupied) since then making it hard to get anything posted for you all to see.

The bow on this present looks good enough to eat!

Oh...is this present for you? Happy Mother's Day!

A Mouthful of Teeth

Alex's teeth are pretty much in. He is now the proud owner of four little choppers! The top two are just little nubs, of course, but I'm glad that we should be experiencing a reprieve from all of the angst of the last couple of weeks. The problem now is that Alex is back in a wake-up-all-the-time routine, and even though I think the teething excuse has run its course, he still seems to want to get up and be fed and/or comforted at least twice a night. OH MY GOODNESS. This is not fun.

I have been busy preparing for the summer course I'll be teaching. I'll be with 3rd graders this summer, and I'm pretty excited about getting back into a classroom, although I am sure that I'll miss Alex like crazy. I think it might be fun for him, though. He really enjoys other kids at play group, and the gals at the YMCA say that he likes to chase the toddlers. (Actually, they told me a funny story about him last week. Apparently, he crawled over to the train table and pulled himself up. He then took apart a section of the track, which really annoyed the "older" kids--yeah, the 2-3 year olds. So, the kids decided that Alex needed to go some place else, and they got a bunch of toys and made a pile in a different area of the room, and encouraged Alex to play there instead of at the table. Roughly the same little group of kids is there whenever Alex is there, and they are always excited to see him, want to "read" to him or show him things. They also like to lead him up the little plastic stair/slide contraption in the playroom. So, they do like him, but apparently this day was play-with-the-train day, and the baby was getting in the way.) Anyway, my point is that I think Alex will enjoy playing with other kids, and I think that this will be a good transition into us being apart full time in the fall.

But I hope that this sleeping thing gets figured out in the next week and a half, so I don't have to go to work like a zombie every day!


This picture doesn't show the top teeth, but they are pretty hard to see anyway. You can, however, see his bottom two pearly whites.

New Teeth...A Painful Experience For the Whole Family!

Sorry it's been so long...life is just busy. Alex is getting some more teeth. Two more, on the top. And he has not let any of us forget it. We went from a lovely, sleeping all night big boy right back to a one-month-old little baby. He's up at least 3 times a night. If I go in to comfort him, rock him, pat his back, etc he knows it's me and will be soothed by nothing but nursing. So, Dan tries to put him to sleep at least once a night so that I am not completely nuts in the morning, but sometimes that doesn't work, and the magic of Mommy is all that will help.

This is not good. I think that some how we are equiped with some extra adrenaline back in the beginning. Waking up every couple of hours somehow becomes OK with a newborn, and we are able to stumble through the day on very little shut-eye. At 8 months, though, I am quite a lunatic after these nights. And while I am now running on a sleep deficiency, Alex doesn't seem to be bothered at all by the fact that he is sleeping in ridiculous little 3 hour chunks. He is still up by 7, ready for his day to start.

Dan has been a real sweetie, taking care of Alex for an hour or two in the morning, until it's actually time for me to need to get up. Thank you, thank you Dan.

In happier news...Alex and I went to the beach today with our playgroup. We went to Ala Moana, which has a wonderful little inlet area, protected by a jetty, so the waves are very gentle. The decline is also very slow into the water, so you can sit down and hold a baby very nicely in your lap, never having to lift him up for waves. This is a nice combination. Usually to sit, you can't be in the water or you'll be overrun with waves all the time. Or, you have to go out a ways and have to stand, balance a baby, and generally be more anxious about dropping him. Plus, standing in the water is not very entertaining to a baby. Today, we sat with our legs in the water, hands in the sand, and just enjoyed the day. I discovered that if Alex has a toy to chew on, he is much less likely to try to eat handfuls of sand. A good discovery, indeed!

Update

Alex is fine. In fact, I think that the rest of the family has suffered much more than he has. Just like you said, Sally!

Thursday night was the big vomit event. Then Friday morning he had diarrhea, which told me that it may not just be a reaction to food. Friday afternoon we went to the dr. She said, as I assumed she would, just to give him electrolytes, continue breastfeeding, and avoid fiber-y foods, like fruit. OK. Great. Another couple of nasty diapers that day.

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling bad. And it went downhill from there. I didn't leave the house at all, and I hardly left the bed. I didn't actually throw up, but I think that was just a careful mixture of Sierra Mist and not moving AT ALL.

Dan played with Alex all day. I am soooo glad this was a weekend. I don't know what I would have done otherwise! He brought him to me when Alex needed to eat, then took him away again. Wonderful, wonderful Dan. After Alex went to sleep, Dan started feeling sick. He said he wasn't sure if it was the Jack-In-The-Box he'd had for dinner or Alex's bug. Doesn't matter. Maybe it was the combination, but Dan retreated to the bathroom for a while, and then returned saying, "Well, that was a waste of $4.53." Dan is always so practical.

So, Dan and I got up this morning, both a little run-over feeling. Alex still has nasty diapers, but he's acting like the energetic little boy he always is. So, I'm just trying to keep giving him Pedialite. The dr. said that a change in activity or appearance is more indicative of a serious problem than other symptoms, so we'll just hope that Alex keeps up the good work of getting into everything! Then we'll know he's OK.

Dan left a few minutes ago to run to the store. I talked him into taking Alex with him. Call it a Mother's Day gift :-)

Baby's First Tummy Bug

Alex has his first sick stomach issue. Last night, Sydney came over to me with her "I want something" look. I assumed she wanted to go outside, so I told her to be patient. Apparently, she didn't take that very well, so she went and woke up Dan. But instead of going to the front door, she went to Alex's door. Dan went to check on Alex and it turned out that he had thrown up all over his crib. In typical baby fashion, where dropping a pen can wake him up, but barking dogs and ambulance sirens don't, Alex had apparently slept through the entire thing. There he was, still snoozing soundly, but laying in a puddle of puke. We were amazed-yes, Dan and I actually talked about this-that Alex had his first big-boy puke. It no longer had that spit-up milk smell. It smelled like vomit. Sorry, but blogs about babies are not always clean :-)

So, we got him up, changed his clothes, gave him a bath and changed his sheets. Dan looked up what to do for a sick baby. I tried to feed him, but after a few minutes of breastfeeding, he spewed all that back out, too. Change both of our clothes this time. Dan read that we should give him Pedialite if he can't keep down breastmilk, so he went off to get some of that. Alex and I sat on the couch, and the next thing I knew, he had fallen asleep. I laid him in his crib. When Dan got home, we debated getting him up, but decided that he probably would get more from sleep than from Pedialite. Alex slept soundly the rest of the night.

I fed him just fine this morning, and he had a normal-looking poopy diaper. I figured it was a reaction to something he ate yesterday. The new things from yesterday were oranges and a different baby cereal, so I decided to try to avoid them both. We went to the YMCA. He ended up having diarrhea, so the Childcare gal was just calling me as I came back to get him.

We now have a Dr. appt in an hour. I called, because it's Friday and I'd rather take him in today than have to go to the hospital or something over the weekend because we have an after-hours complaint. I assume he just has a little bug, and they probably can't do anything about it, but I'd rather find that out now.

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Here are just a couple of pictures of Alex. Completely unrelated to the previous story. For Aunty Cate, who requested more pictures now that she's left the island.

Yummy! I love banana teething biscuits!

Hmmm...what exactly is in this biscuit? I want to know because I plan to smear it all over my face, and was hoping that it had some moisturizing properties as well. Smear!

Oh, hello Sydney. So nice of you to wander past. I just love Sydney!

Sydney. What are you doing? Hey. That's my buscuit!!

Mom. Sydney ate my buscuit. Can I have another one?

We Conquered Diamond Head

Yesterday, Alex and I went on a hike. We had plans to meet up with a couple of other mom-and-baby pairs and hike up Diamond Head Crater.

There's the beast! (Not my picture, by the way, stolen from some website) It was an amazing, amazing view. You can see the entire southern coast of the island, all the way to Barber's Point, if you know Hawaiian geography. Just lovely. Totally worth the sweat and exhaustion!

It was prettier in person...or maybe I was just tired :-) Anyway, Alex was on my back, and since I got there late, I was hiking alone (that was incentive, though, I had to catch up!) I kept passing all these people (on their way down...I wasn't really passing anyone going the same direction as me!) who were saying nice, encouraging things to me: "There's a tough momma!" and "You go, girl!" Then, there was one woman who said, "You are just gonna die going up there!" She was on her way down. If I'd been thinking any faster, I would have said something equally rude like "If you could make it, I am sure I can, too!" But my mind was a bit fatigued so I just muttered something like "Hope not" and kept going. So, lady, if you are reading this, I MADE IT.

So, my calves are a bit sore today, but it was a really nice workout. I told Dan we'd have to go sometime soon so he can check it out, too.

You went to the zoo? Us too!

Funny that our little Wisconsin friends went to the zoo this weekend. So did Alex and I. We went with a playgroup buddy, Dylan, and his mom and her friend. Our little boys are about the same age, Alex is about 3 weeks older. So, at play group each week, his mom and I compare notes and have very similar things to say...oh, now he's pulling up? Mine too!

Anyway, the tough thing about animals is that one of thier survival techniques is camoflauge. If our boys were predators, not many of the animals at this zoo would have been in danger :-) We pointed and rotated, and moved little heads, but it was rather worthless. Our poor little boys (to quote Andi) "thought they were on a long walk" with a couple of animals along the way. I am sure that they noticed the ostrich, who was bobbing his head like crazy, and the elephants were pretty active as we walked by. They also got to pet some goats in the kids' area. There were also some birds that we adults considered kind of ugly, but that were big and colorful enough that they boys actually looked at them, moving their heads to show that they were following them.

The zoo will be an event to repeat in a few months. Honestly, Alex gets much more out of the mall's pet shop, where he can get very close and definitely see the animals. So, it's back to the free animal entertainment. I'm not complaining :-)

Felicidades a todos!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone. Alex and I ended up in the midst of this way-too-big Cinco de Mayo fiesta on accident this evening. Not knowing that everyone and sus madres would be out looking for cheap margaritas, we went down to Aloha tower, just to walk around and look at the big boats. Aloha tower, as you might guess, is a big tower with the word "ALOHA" on it. It is at the pier where all the big cruise ships dock. If you have been on a cruise ship, you know that the spot where they let off their passengers is always a nice place to sell, well, EVERYTHING. So there is a little mall, a bunch of restaurants and all the tourist trappings that Hawaii has to offer. Leis and aloha wear, beach attire, and the goofy "only in Hawaii" stuff, like HI license plates with names on them or magnets with hula girls, etc.

Anyway, we were really there just to see the big boats, but there was a FIESTA going on, so we also saw salsa dancing, people roaming around with sombreros and Mexican flags, and those aforementioned margaritas. And every restaurant had them on special. I was really tempted, but I tried to think what I would think if I saw myself, a woman out alone, drinking with her baby. Not cool. So, I moved on. We did see some big boats, though! A couple of cruise ships were there, and the evening dinner cruise ship The Star of Honolulu was docking just as we walked by, and then some neat looking large sail boats. Alex at least looked their way, but he's so much more interested in watching people walk by, that boats are not real attention-getters right now. The salsa dancers, however, had his full attention.

Here are some pictures from a few days ago. Alex is in the office, crawling around under the desk chair. He was kind of upset to find out that he couldn't sit up while under there. He didn't seem to hurt himself as he tried to sit up, he just looked really confused.

Shhhh....we're playing hide and seek...do you see Sydney?

"It's just another day under the furniture again..." (I'm sorry, that one is for Uncle Chris and my famiy. The story is too long and silly to relate here, but I hope that they are laughing :-) )

Creepin', Crawlin', and Cruisin'

Alex is unstoppable. He is the master of the tummy-on-the-floor wriggle, and it remains the most effective form of movement right now. But, he is also starting to crawl, and he's starting the pre-walking fun of "cruising." (For anyone not immersed in baby book jargon right now, that's the "holding on to things while walking" stage.) He has made it the length of the couch with this new skill. Exciting. It's really not perfected yet, as he ends up on his (thankfully, diapered) little behind every 30 seconds or so, as he tries to do the really tough skills like pick up a toy off the floor while holding on to the side of the toy box. He certainly has a way to go. But it's amazing that about a month ago, he was still having trouble sitting up!

No pictures tonight. I'm sleepy and just don't feel like it. I'll make it up to the fans tomorrow :-)

****All about Mommy news flash****
I got a teaching position at a private school for the summer. It looks like it will be a good transition back to working for me, and into the day care world for Alex, as it will only be half days. This job is also going to be nice because it's downtown, very close to where we live and to where Dan works. So, it's convenient, and we can continue with only one car. I have started looking for a good place for Alex during this time, and I'm sure we will find some wonderful arrangements.Life always works out, doesn't it?

Alex Takes a Stand

Alex is all about standing up. You'd think he'd been doing this for years! He will sit on the floor and play with a toy for a couple of minutes, and then it's like he suddenly thinks, "What am I doing? I could be standing!!!" Then he'll wiggle across the ground, find some stationary object that he is pretty sure will support him, and UP he goes! So far, this plan has worked really well. If he uses me, he also gets a little help and a hug when he gets to standing. The boxes, cube-wall, couch, and toy container offer less help, but are sturdy enough. His only rejection so far was Sydney. He grabbed some fur, started to pull himself up, and Sydney just about hit the ceiling. I have to give her credit, though. Alex fell and cried a little, and she came to lick his face, as if to apologize.

I know she didn't mean to hurt him, but he didn't mean to hurt her, either!

What's up? Oh, this standing thing...yeah, I guess I've been doin' it for a while....like 3, 4 days maybe.

Hey, Mom, have you seen my Pooh Bear?